Pittswood Birds

This afternoon didn't provide any of the excitement of yesterday, the weather had turned again and it was dull, cold and windy, hardly the type of day to find a spring migrant. None-the-less I still went out and gave it a try! My usual visit to the wet woods was only marginally better than yesterday, I did find a small flock of LONG TAILED TITS, with their companions of GOLDCREST, and TREECREEPER, as well as a small band of SISKIN above in the Alder trees. A couple of GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS were drumming, but that was it for today. At the lake area, all was quiet, but for 3 CANADA GEESE and 4 MALLARD, I fancy anything that could have been on the lake whilst I was on my way there, was flushed off by a dog walker who had passed me earlier coming from the lakes. A scan of one of the nearby gardens provided me with some common birds at the feeders there, CHAFFINCH, GREENFINCH, GOLDFINCH and the ever present GREAT and BLUE TITS were very active and in good numbers, (as they were in my garden, where I had a pair of Siskin in ). I had to go through the tree nursery to get to migrant alley, knowing that work there would mean nothing being seen, most of the large shrubs have now been ''eaten'' by the big shredding machine, and the field is just down to bare earth. The last part of the field is made up of quite large plots of Ash, Oak, Maple, and Beech, some of the trees are quite large and a JCB is uprooting them all for the shredding machine. All this disturbance should be over this week, and all that will be left is 25 - 30 acres of mulched tree and topsoil - perfect for a migrant wheatear to drop onto! It does seem a big waste of trees though. Another 20 acres is still to be used for the nursery until spring 2011, i'll have to think of another name for the cleared site, I can't keep calling it the ex- tree nursery!

Anyway over at migrant alley, I battled against the odds of finding an early migrant, as well as a cold wind whipping across the fields, but of course I didn't win, it's a bit early still, but if your not there you don't find! the only birds I saw were the Corvids- ROOK , JACKDAW, and CARRION CROW with the STOCK DOVES, and around 12 each of REDWING and FIELDFARE. The odd SKYLARK came up and gave some brief song, before dropping back onto the stubble, but that was about the extent of my sightings today, not even a Black headed Gull flew over for the months list! No pics today, it was just too dark!